Team Skylar
Team Skylar (チームとのちにすちすにみ, Chimuskairarin) is a fan-made, American video game developer founded as Reset Studios in 2007 and is currently headed by Michael Wildshill, and owned by Team Chu. Located in Santa Monica in California, United States, the company specializes in RPGs, platformers and adventure games, publishes animations, short films, comic books and does special effects, and employs over 900 employees around the world. The key members (non-realisticly) are Michael, Edward Fowly and Daniel Pecker (not to be confused with Robert Pecker and Daniel Garcia), an executive producer who started working in Team Skylar since 2009. History The game studio was founded in 2007 by Michael Wildshill, after he left Pandemic Studios, with 33 other employees. They first were going to name their company "Nuclear Games", but when someone said that "we should make games that just resets other people's perspectives on action games", Laser responded "it could be possible, but how can we do that". They also contacted Ubisoft Montréal, their affiliate, to form a Montréal studio. According to one employee, when Reset Studios was founded, they started making action-arcade games but expanded business to main video games, which led to discontinuation of Consumer Games Division. When the studio was still known as Reset Studios, it operated 3 main studios; the main studio at Santa Monica, United States, the second studio at Montréal, Canada and the last studio in London, United Kingdom, and they acquired a Swedish game developer Fatshark. These studios still are operated, under Team Skylar, but London office was closed. The studio also recruited the former employees of other well known games developers, like Lucasarts, Ubisoft Montréal, Rare Ltd, Crytek, THQ, Activision and EA. They had plans to create a video game console "at one point", but plans were cancelled, because they rather publish games to other consoles, than their own. In 2009, Reset Studios released it's first arcade game, Quest to Something. In 2012, Reset Studios released a sequel, for their 32-bit platformer, called Super Ultimate Squad 2, under the Reset Labs label, for smartphones, Xbox 360 and Wii U. It met with mixed to positive reviews and was praised for story, nostalgic feeling and music, but was panned for difficulty and in-app purchases. Also in 2012, after the layoffs at Radical Entertainment, Team Skylar hired the lay-offed staff and formed a studio in Vancouver. In 2014, Reset Studios and The Pokémon Company released a physics-puzzle platformer, The Pichus, which has a gameplay similiar to Little Big Planet, with new features like gravity controlled by tilting the console and scratching to make items and objects apper, almost like in Paper Mario. Reset Studios announced it's game Furryous at Gamescom 2014, but few months later, Reset was announced to be re-branded and restructed as Team Skylar, as the company also expanded to comic book publishing, animation and special effects. The company was re-named after their upcoming new IP, known as Skylar. Team Skylar Minsk, Team Skylar Nottingham and Team Skylar Salt Lake announced the development of new IP in Gamescom 2014 the day after Furryous announcement. It was also rumored that a Crash Bandicoot title was in development for PlayStation 4, with release date unknown. At GDC 2015 and TGS 2015, Team Skylar announced to develop games for Microsoft HoloLens, first one being Illumengine-powered Hired Gun Online, which includes massive online multiplayer, "room scanning"-based virtual reality rendering and even motion sensoring "for realistic gun action". Team Skylar also discontinued, disbanded and/or merged 5 labels/development teams to other studios and closed the Abu Dhabi studio, in the same year. Milestones *'2007': The company is formed. *'2010': First non-arcade game released. *'2012': The partnership deal with DeNA/Mobage was announced. Games *''Quest to Something'' (2009; Arcade) - Developed by Team Skylar Montréal, Team Skylar Salt Lake, Team Skylar Nottingham and Team Skylar London. "You are on a quest to rescue the princess, but you need a lot of loot. A lot. Like you need a big inventory." *''Super Ultimate Squad'' (2010; Bandai CD, Bandai CD Revolution, Bandai Chaos, Bandai Extreme, Bandai PocketTurbo, Bandai PocketTurbo Plus, Bandai Revolution, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Nintendo Wii) - Developed by Team Skylar Santa Monica. "The superheroes are on a quest to save the whole city. Little they know, they break the fourth wall in few cases." *''Super Ultimate Squad 2'' (2012; iOS, Android, Xbox 360, Wii U) - Developed by Team Skylar Santa Monica, Team Skylar Austin, Team Skylar Porto Alegre and Team Skylar Mobile Studio. "The squad is back and more (awesome) awful than ever. Go and stop some aliens. Just go." *''Jurioku'' (2012; PlayStation Vita) - Developed by Team Skylar Osaka. "Gravity-based adventure" *''Incognito'' (2013; Xbox Live Arcade) - Developed by Team Skylar Nagoya. "A spy adventure game where the player works for CIA. Your mission is to spy on people, but you might not know that people are spying on you too." *''Frantic Mayhem Royale 2'' (2013; Xbox 360, Xbox One, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U) - Developed by Team Skylar Montreal and Team Skylar Nottingham. "An action game where you fight monsters, 'nuff said." *''The Pichus'' (2014; Nintendo 3DS, Wii U) (not to be confused with Pichu Bros.: Meowth's Revenge) - Developed by HAL Laboratory, 1-UP Studio, Team Skylar Osaka, Team Skylar Santa Monica, Creatures Inc and The Pokemon Company. "Inspired by Juriouku, The Pichus is about the adventure where The Pichus and Pikachu come to visit Raichu, but many things are missing. You need to use scratching and gravity to get through levels." *''Furryous'' '''(2014; PS4, Xbox One, Wii U, PC) - Developed by Team Skylar. "A cute platformer focused on Larry the Lion's adventures on stopping "trolls" from invading the realms." *Hired Gun' (2015; Windows, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Wii U, Xbox One, Arcade) - Developed by Project Hired Gun, with support of and additional development by Omixron (at Team Skylar Salt Lake), 7 Studio and Luxoflux. The gameplay is a hybrid of Metal Gear Solid, Assassin's Creed, Call of Duty, Halo, Gears of War and Titanfall. *Vehicular Special Forces ''(2015; Windows, PS3, PSVita, Xbox 360, Wii U, Arcade) - The last game developed by Ram Games, also developed by Team UltraTurbo. It's a racing game, mixed with action-adventure elements and open world. *''Moving Mountains'' (2016; PC, Wii U, PlayStation 4) - Developed by Awero Studio. "A JRPG focused on Erin and guardian angel (and his boyfriend, formerly alive) Awero and their adventures through "gates and dimensions"." *''Skylar'' ("coming when it's done"; Xbox One, PC) - Developed by Team Skylar. "A bullied control freak gets supernatural powers and CIA is hunting her down." *''Untitled Crash Bandicoot project'' (TBA, PS4) - Developed by (possibly) Team Skylar Vancouver. Description unavailable. *''The Slaughter Factory, formerly Project D2N'' (TBA) - "A horror game based around a remote island, with an abandoned factory. There are a lot of secrets about that factory and the island and you need to find out all of them." *''Frantic Mayhem Royale 3'' (TBA) *''Hired Gun: Online ''(TBA; PS4, Xbox One, Windows, Nintendo NX, Wii U) - Developed by Project Hired Gun of Team Skylar Santa Monica, in collaboration with Team Skylar Phenomic. Announced in TGS 2015, the game was going to be functional with and without virtual reality headsets. *''20 new IPs from other studios'' (all TBA; PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Wii U, PC, Nintendo NX, 3DS, Wii U, Android, iOS, Blackberry, Windows Phone, Arcade (possibly; the platforms the games are gonna be released on are depending on the developers)) Minigames/"alternative universe" games The game info will be listed in this order: Minigame name (The year the minigame was said to be "released"; the game the minigame was featured in/The actual developer(s) of the minigame (and/or the real game)) - Description *''Quest to Everything: A Collect-a-thon Game'' (1991; Quest to Something/Team Skylar London, Salt Lake and Newcastle) - Complete opposite of the game. Just collect everything, screw the princess. *''Old Ultra Human Platformer 16'' (1996; Super Ultimate Squad 2/Team Skylar Austin and Porto Alegre) - Have you ever thinked what would platformers look like in the pararell universe? *''Just Another Day in the Good Old Alternative Universe'' (2000; Furryous/Team Skylar Osaka and Montréal) *''Destroyer'' (1986; Frantic Mayhem Royale 2/Team Skylar Nottingham) *''Destroyer 3D'' (1997; Frantic Mayhem Royale 3/Team Skylar) - The "third" installment in the Destroyer series. Other games The games, listed here, are either tech demos, April Fool's jokes or cancelled games. *''Cirtual'' (tech demo) - A tech demo, which features remastered Crash Bandicoot levels. The demo was featured in Gamescom 2014 and it was rumored to be a teaser to the Crash Bandicoot project. *''Cancelled open world sandbox-RPG game'' (was to be released in 2014; Wii U, PlayStation 4) - Developed by Team Skylar Minsk. The game was supposed to be an open world RPG game. No other information has been confirmed. *''Bionic Wars'' (cancelled - original release date unknown; PlayStation 4, PSVita, Xbox One, Windows) - Developed by Team Skylar Abu Dhabi, and previously known as Untitled stealth game. The game's plot was revealed to include mechanical combat and stealth elements, to be set in Dubai during 2080s, and was to be a cinematic science fiction-action game. *''Zone of the Enders 3'' (April Fool's joke) - With Kojima Productions, these two companies decided to create an April Fools joke, and released a "gameplay trailer". After the introduction by Kojima and Daniel Pecker, the gameplay trailer soon played, only to end in a cutscene, which had many plot twists. After a very bizzare plot twist, which revealed that everything, that happened in the trailer, was just a dream, the entire game was revealed to be a joke. Affiliates and partners Note that all of these are non-realisticly affiliates and partners of Team Skylar. *Apple Entertainment, Inc. **THQ, now owned by Apple Entertainment. *Ubisoft Entertainment *Activision Blizzard *Microsoft Studios *Nintendo *Sony Computer Entertainment *Google *Apple, Inc. (not to be confused with Apple Entertainment, Inc.) *Square Enix *DeNA Games *Bandai Namco Games *Konami Corporation *Amazon Game Studios *Koch Media (Deep Silver) Studios *'Team Skylar Santa Monica', started in 2007. *'Team Skylar Montréal', started in 2007. The first game is Frantic Mayhem Royale 2, made by staff from the series' core team in now-defunct Crytek UK (Free Radical Design), which Team Skylar acquired the franchise from. *'Team Skylar Osaka', started in 2009. *'Team Skylar Nagoya', started in 2009. *'Team Skylar Minsk', started in 2009. *'Team Skylar Seattle', started in 2009. *'Team Skylar Kyiv', started in 2009. *'Team Skylar Nicosia', started in 2009. *'Team Skylar Nottingham', started in 2010. Located next to the Deep Silver/Dambuster Studios office. *'Team Skylar Brighton', started in 2011. *'Team Skylar Krakhiv', started in 2011. *'Team Skylar Salt Lake', started in 2009. *'Team Skylar Vancouver', started in 2012. *'Team Skylar Chertsey', started in 2013. Labels *'Team Skylar Labs', started in 2009, specializing on helping and co-developing with independent video game developers, experimenters and researchers. Games published under the label include Super Ultimate Squad. *'Virtual Arcade Interactive Entertainment Productions' (VAIE Productions), started in 2010, specializing on developing minigames and "80s arcade-ish" video games played in Team Skylar's games. Internal development teams *'Iris Force', a handheld game development team in Team Skylar Nottingham, started in 2010. *'Team UltraTurbo', a racing game development team in Team Skylar Brighton, started in 2011. *'Omixron', a name used by the free-to-play game development teams in Team Skylar Nicosia, started in 2010. Previously had another office located at Team Skylar Salt Lake, until it was shut down and merged to the Salt Lake studio in 2015, after the release of Hired Gun. *'Black Box', a sports development team in Team Skylar Vancouver, started in 2013, after acquiring the team from Electronic Arts. *'Team Skylar Mobile Studio', a name used by the mobile game development teams at almost every studio. First started in 2008 in Team Skylar London, after acquiring Vivendi Games Mobile. *'RedOctane', a music, arcade game and arcade hardware developer in Team Skylar Santa Monica, acquired from Activision in 2010 and moving the team to Santa Monica studio. Started in 2010. *'Pandemic Studios', a development team in Team Skylar Santa Monica, started in 2009, after acquiring from EA. *'Mythic Entertainment', a MMO development team in Team Skylar Santa Monica, started in 2014, after acquiring from EA and moving to Santa Monica studio. *'Project Hired Gun', an action-adventure game development and porting team in Team Skylar Santa Monica and Team Skylar Montréal, started in 2007, after acquiring Hired Gun team from Microsoft and spliting to Montréal and Santa Monica studios. Created for the development of the games in "upcoming Hired Gun franchise". *'Awero Studio', a JRPG development team in Team Skylar Osaka, started in 2011. *'Solid Pirate Ninjas', a puzzle game and physics engine developer, in Team Skylar Nottingham, Team Skylar Salt Lake, Team Skylar Chertsey and Team Skylar Vancouver. Started in 2002, acquired in 2009. Customer support and/or non-game studios *'Team Skylar Krasnodar', Russian quality assurance studio started in 2008. *'Team Skylar Novokuznetsk', Russian customer support facility started in 2008. *'Team Skylar Warsaw', a Polish localization studio started in 2008. *'Team Skylar Manchester', a British special effects and graphics studio started in 2009. *'Team Skylar Saigon', a Vietnamese quality assurance, localization and customer support facility, located in Ho Chi Minh City, started in 2009. *'Team Skylar Seoul', a Korean animation studio started in 2014. *'Team Skylar Singapore', a game incubation and animation studio, started in 2014. *'Team Skylar Issy', a French quality assurance and localization studio, located in Issy-les-Moulineaux, started in 2013. *'Team Skylar Shenzen', a Chinese animation studio, started in 2014. *'Team Skylar Galway', an Irish customer support facility, started in 2013. *'Cloudsauce', a special effects, cloud computing, localization, quality assurance and animation studio, started in 2014. Acquired *'Wolf Team', a JRPG development team in Team Skylar Osaka, acquired from Namco in 2011 and renamed to Wolf Team in 2012. *'Team Skylar Porto Alegre', started in 2009 after Southlogic Studios was acquired by Ubisoft. Acquired from Ubisoft in 2010. *'Team Skylar Phenomic', a real-time strategy game developer, started in 1997, acquired by EA in 2006, acquired from EA in 2013. *'Team Skylar Asia Pacific', an Australian localization studio and distributor of European games of other publishers. Acquired from THQ in 2012. *'Team Skylar San Diego', a sports game developer, acquired from THQ in 2012. *'Fatshark', Swedish game developer, acquired in 2009. *'Team Skylar Newcastle', started in 2009, after acquiring Midway Games - Newcastle. *'Team Skylar Austin', started in 2008, after acquiring Midway Games - Austin. *'Team Skylar Shanghai', a Chinese localization, graphics studio and game developer, started in 2011, after acquiring Yingpei Games. Former *'Team Skylar London', founded in 2007, closed and merged to Newcastle Studio in 2014. *'Reset Studios Jakarta', Indonesia. Started in 2009, closed in 2010. *'Reset Studios Makati', Filippines. Started in 2009, closed in 2011. *'Reset Studios Hangzhou', China. Started in 2010, closed in 2013. *'Reset Studios Fareham', United Kingdom. Started in 2010, sold to Starbreeze Studios in 2013. Now known as Starbreeze UK. *'Team Skylar Solent', United Kingdom. Started in 2011, closed in 2014. *'Reset Studios Consumer Games Division (Reset Studios CGD)'. A label used for consumer games made during the era when Reset Studios made action-arcade games, started in 2007. Discontinued in 2009. *'Deep Core Skylar', an arcade hardware and API/SDK development team in Team Skylar Santa Monica, Team Skylar Montreal and Team Chu Newcastle, started in 2009. The label was discontinued after the release of Hired Gun in 2015. *'Team Skylar Integrated Computer Engineers Studio (Team Skylar ICE Studio)', a name used by arcade hardware, engineering, technological aspect, software technology, server maintenance, peripheral development and arcade manufacturing teams in many team Skylar studios. Started in 2007. The label was discontinued after the release of Hired Gun in 2015. *'Ram Games', a label used by a racing development team in Team Skylar Salt Lake, started in 2011, after acquiring from THQ and moving the team to Salt lake studio. Formerly known as Rainbow Studios and Rainbow Games, the final name was used since 2013, after Fiat Chrysler Automobiles made a partnership with Team Skylar to develop games featuring Dodge cars and Ram trucks, until 2015, when the team's last racing game Vehicular Special Forces was released. The label was then discontinued and was merged to Salt Lake studios. *'Team Skylar Abu Dhabi', started in 2010, with help and funding by Abu Dhabi Media Group. The funding and partnership with Abu Dhabi Media Group ended in 2015, coincidentally after the release of Hired Gun. Their then-in-development title Bionic Wars was cancelled, after 4 years in development. *'7 Studio', a development team in Team Skylar Santa Monica, started in 2010, after acquiring 7 Studios from Activision and moving the team to Santa Monica studio. Merged with Luxoflux team to Team Skylar Santa Monica's core team, in 2015, after the release of Hired Gun. *'Luxoflux', a development team in Team Skylar Santa Monica, started in 2010, after acquiring the team from Activision. Merged with 7 Studio team to Team Skylar Santa Monica's core team, in 2015, after the release of Hired Gun. Trivia *There are easter eggs related to VAIE Productions label that (for example) in the title screen of Destroyer ''(a "not-so-minigame" which can be played in Frantic Mayhem Royale 2) said "© V A ? ? ?????? MCMLXXXVI" (which translates to "© VAIE Russia MCMLXXXVI (1986)"), which means that "it was made in Russia in 1986", when it was actually made by Team Skylar Montréal in 2013. The references are made in every game and the year when the minigame was "made" was said to be always from 10 years to 25 years older than the actual game. *Like Kojima Productions for example, Team Skylar also does publicity stunts, easter eggs and more, regarding their games, staff and even their games' characters. **In the "alternative universe" game Quest to Everything 2, found inside the conceptual prototype of Hired Gun: Online, the staff of Team Skylar London, Team Skylar Nottingham and Team Skylar Newcastle can be seen in many buildings and dungeons. **In another "alternative universe" game Destroyer 3D, found in demo of Frantic Mayhem Royale 3, shown at E3 2014, when you enter the Funhouse, one mirror shows the main character Austin from Frantic Mayhem Royale instead of Dmitri, the main character of Destroyer 3D. Edward Fowly commented on this easter egg by saying "Whoops. This wasn't supposed to happen." while playing the game. **While announcing Moving Mountains in E3 2013, he (Edward Fowly) wore a T-shirt that read "0011 0011", which is number three in binary. This was later confirmed as a nod to the fact that Half-Life 3 wasn't released and had so much hype at the time. It was also a homage to E3'' 201''3'' and the Illuminati conspiracy theories on the Internet. Coincidentally, the release date for Moving Mountains was announced to be 3th of March, 2016. *Frantic Mayhem Royale franchise used to be owned by Crytek and the first game was made by Free Radical Design, now Crytek UK) and was acquired from Crytek when Crytek UK was closed. *The company was almost acquired by Atlus. In 2013, Atlus USA offered $50 million, but founder Wildshill declined the offer. Gallery Reset Studios Logo 2007.png|First logo of Reset Studios, used since 2007 until 2010. Resetstudioslogo.png|Second and final logo of Reset Studios, used since 2009 until 2014. Category:Team Skylar